Look at what the American people have allowed to happen to their country for years.

[shockey80]

We allowed the rich and powerful to take complete control of our government, our entire lives, our culture, our work culture.

We allowed the rich and powerful to get away with sexually assaulting thousands of women and girls. It became part of our culture. Hell, Epstein started a world wide club for the rich, Got money, want to fuck a teenager, come to my Island. Women in Hollywood were abused for decades. For decades we allowed people on wall street, bankers, politicians, to rob us blind. What did the people do about it? We gave them giant tax cuts over and over again.

For decades cops have been murdering black people.

It was the American people that allowed themselves to be paid poverty wages for decades. It was the people that did not protect their unions. It was the American people who went to work like sheep.

It was the American people that allowed themselves to be easily divided. It is the American people who swallowed propaganda like pigs at a trough.

It was the American people that elected a lunatic president and elected many lunatics to congress.

In general, the American people fucked up their country. Now we are all paying a price for our apathy. Now we are protesting and it is working. We should have been protesting like this decades ago. Only the few fought, the few was not enough.

What we are witnessing is self inflicted. Russia did not do this to us. The virus did not do this to us. The people did it to themselves.

[Nictuku]

1. When the Supreme Court told Florida how to count (or not count) their votes

I could not understand, for the life of me, why we were not all out in the streets.

Or even worse, when they Killed Kennedy.

We are not immune to gas lighting.

And now no one knows what news to trust.

Foreign Nationals interfering and expounding our racism.

Such dread I feel today. I remember the pure joy on the night Obama was elected.

I can't wait for November, yet at the same time I am dreading it.

[jaxexpat]

4. The streets should have been full the first time the US invaded Iraq.

And the second time too.
Reagan broke PATCO 1981
Reagan landed troops in Beirut 1983
US invaded Grenada in 1983
LA in 1992
Oklahoma City in 1995
Illegal Florida election Nov.- Dec. 2000/Jan. 2001
Charlottesville in 2017
Every time the electoral college was used as an excuse to deny democracy

I missed a lot of protest worthy events, I'm sure. It's always time to petition in the streets. Politicians get complacent when their headquarters aren't visited en masse occasionally.

[drmeow]

2. For many of us, it has not been a matter of allowed

so much as unable to stop.

A lot of Americans have been duped and a rigged political system has kept it that way through propaganda and cheating.

[AlexSFCA]

3. we don't like to blame ourselves, much easier to blame putin

[ancianita]

8. Can't agree. We've been so conditioned to blame ourselves that it's easier than blaming Putin.

Haven't you seen all the "WE" conditioning of bots and comments on social media? "WE" are to blame ourselves for disease, rigged elections, and all that the ever-winning Republicans have done. "We" are forever tainted by the worst among us, no matter how "we" try to be our brothers' keeper.

That "we" stuff is not true, but it seeps in. It's like a seeping toxin into our emotions and minds. Have you seen all the "we" who are on the frontlines? If not, why not? Are "we" keeping ourselves from knowing the best of ourselves?

Just because there is some truth to "we don't like to blame ourselves," let's at least be clear about who "we" is. No "we" of America is a monolith.

[ancianita]

5. I do not believe this. Facts prove that Americans have been deceived by networks for 40 years.

Not just corporate networks and right wing media networks.

In 2010 Bot networks were at work, bought by the swiftboater group and Koch brothers, to swarm the nets to get Republican Scott Brown elected to take Ted Kennedy's MA seat. It's documented. It happened.

I sincerely believe that you need to read about the systematic disinformation campaigns that Americans have been confounded and confused by. Media on the nets won't help you with that history. Media won't tell you that algorithms decide 70% of Wall St trades. It won't say much about how bots that have polluted social media political discourse -- social media are now preferred over traditional media by the majority of Americans -- for all these years.

No leaders helped Americans learn any of this (they're so behind the population in tech use already!). Americans had to get out there and figure it out from sources other than media. You might feel frustrated, weary or ... I don't know for sure.

But you can't just come out now with "Russia did not do this to us." Yes they did. It's been proven that the Russia did do this to us. Information about the virus did do this to us. Trust has been betrayed, access to truthful, factual information has been mixed with streams of outright lies and fabrications. Now? Today? Protests about police are driven by the inner anger about what all else has been done to Americans. Yes. Things have been done to Americans.

Americans are not stupid, but they can be conditioned about what facts, truth and science are. Chomsky show us that back in the 80's.

We must pay attention, learn, put dependably factual learning to use when making our decisions. This has been a hard, dark transition, but Americans will make it out of this period.

You're entitled to your opinion, but it's not factual or helpful. It only makes people feel bad for you or with you.

I'm with Obama. I read from his summer book list. And he still says Yes We Can.

My own book suggestions, relevant to what you're saying:

P.W. Singer (the best expert on all things Internet) LikeWar2018.

Anand Giridharadas. Winners Take All 2018



Of course, all this is just my opinion.

[marieo1]

6. Our hands are tied!!

What can the average American do about it? If you're an average citizen of this country, working a full time job, raising children, our main worry is paying our bills, keeping a roof over our heads and food on the table. Most average Americans are a long ways from Washington DC and no clue how to make changes so we elect people that we think will support our opinions and try to make the changes for us. The only problem is the opposing political party that will not let any bill that will help us pass I.E. Mitch McConnell said he would make sure President Obama couldn't ever pass any bill that would help us, and DJT has devoted himself to getting rid of everything President Obama did for us and by the way....look what happened to Paul Wellstone!! Mr. Wellstone was totally dedicated to making changes for us and probably died for it. We all are victims of the right wingers that only support the extreme wealthy and lining their own pockets.

[shockey80]

11. That's what I heard from co-workers who were having their overtime pay stolen.

I had to fight alone and I won. Everyone got their overtime pay. I risked everything, alone. That's just one example of things I have witnessed, lived through for the past forty years.

In general people stopped fighting.

We used to average hundreds of strikes per year in this country. Now they are rare. Unions used to have balls, now they are gelded. Now when workers are abused at work (If they have a union) they file a grievance that takes 6 months to be heard. It's a fucking joke.

These protests we are having now changed things in a week. Sometimes you have to risk everything. Sometimes you may have to burn a building down. If you don't you will slowly lose everything and that is exactly what happened to us.

[hadEnuf]

7. Hey Cynical, miss Discussionist already?

Is this another one of those "they'll believe anything at DU" posts?

[ancianita]

9. Thank you for that.

So who, again, are former Discussionist participants? I've been wondering.

[Warpy]

10. We the people were not consulted on any of this stuff.

Most of all, we the people elected Clinton. The election was stolen by a crooked and misallocated bunch of state electors.

Conservatives have been ruling this country against the will of the people since 1969. Before then, some of us got crumbs.

This is their end game. After that, the deluge.

[jmg257]

12. Interesting take. Hmmm...

[shockey80]

13. I have done things like that my whole life.

Recently I asked my job what are they going to do to protect the disabled we work with and the staff. Crickets. I took myself out of work because I did not want to die or kill my wife. I may have been the only worker there that did that. They are all working in very unsafe conditions. Sometimes you have to say NO, no matter the risk.

[jmg257]

14. Excellent points. You are correctnin standing up for things like that.

Someone has to!

[peacebuzzard]

15. While the unions were busted right and left

and everything turned corporate is when I started getting sick with fury.
I know many good workers who put heart and soul into organizing, negotiating and it suck the life blood out of them.
The corporations made unions a hate word, a radical fringe movement.

It has been downhill for a long time as the great union organizers gave it their all only to be rejected, vilified, marginalized and ridiculed.
Many lost their jobs while fighting for their rights, countless lost their lives as well. To be an object of scorn beat many a good worker down.

All this effectively transferred controls and power to the higher echelons of suits.